The Daily Show's limits

That's how Jon Stewart summed up his interview with popular
right-wing historian David Barton.
He was right. After 30 minutes of glib back-and-forth with Barton (ten of which
made it onto TV), Stewart was flummoxed, worn down, unfunny:

As the air left the room, the conversation exposed the gaping
ideological divide between Americans--and the challenges we face in bridging
it.

Conservatives who go on the Daily Show usually end up looking the fool. But Stewart met his match in
Barton, an ideological warrior revered by Glenn Beck and Mike Huckabee.
Stewart's razor wit and trademark blue index cards were no match for Barton's
prodigious memory and unwavering insistence that America's
Christian founding has been erased by secular elites.

Theshow's staff probably
thought Barton could be caricatured as a half-crazed ideologue, unconcerned with
larger inconvenient truths. Perhaps they figured that a few well-chosen facts
that don't fit his God-and-country narrative would render him speechless, that
he would crumble under the relentless ironic jabs. But if it were just a matter
of enumerating quotations and dates, members of Congress wouldn't be calling
Barton to provide them with the founders' views on deficits, stem cell research
and stimulus programs. Barton offers his listeners something much more
alluring.

One thing we learned from Stewart's tête-à-tête with Barton is that
anecdote-ridden claims can't be countered with more anecdotes. What Stewart
never articulated was the essential function of history--using the
preponderance of evidence to provide a credible context for understanding the past
and the present. Barton presents himself as the high priest of founding texts
and the arbiter of honest truth. He's not, of course. But it's going to take
patient, gritty work to convince folks otherwise.

Barton's carefully crafted image as a just-the-facts historian is key
to his success. He insists again and again that we shouldread our primary-source documents just as we should
read the Bible: unmediated. Too many professional historians, he scoffs,
simply cite each other and repeat liberal platitudes.

Barton's stories are made still more effective because he presents
them in slick, satisfying and easily digested form. He brings props to his
lectures. He reveals a tiny Bible to which he says that the early Congress gave
its blessing. He tells people that they have been lied to and that their
schools are under assault. He claims that historians have hid the fundamental
truth of a Christian founding. It's a story that resonates.

Barton is flat wrong about many things. He likes to point out, for
example, that a number of the signers of the Declaration of Independence went
to "seminary"--without mentioning that in the 18th century, the word
meant simply "college." Nor does he tell his audience that only a fraction of
these "seminary" graduates were orthodox Christians, or that they generally
refrained from using religious language in their formal deliberations.

Note the word "generally." Barton is all about exceptions rather than
rules, whether he's hunting down Jefferson's occasional references to God or exaggerating
some modern-day secularist's impact. But good history goes where the weight of evidence leads it. That's why
the small lies that Barton tells pale in comparison to the more insidious one:
the claim that he has access to evidence that others--for nefarious,
anti-Christian reasons--want to suppress.

This allegedly unique stash of original documents is Barton's
ace-in-the-hole. Of course, nearly every historian has access to the same
documents--and many more. The difference is that they don't treat their
patiently excavated findings as if they were the protagonists in a Dan Brown
novel. Instead, they carefully evaluate the evidence on the basis of what many
thousands of others have already discovered.

Barton's Daily Show appearance didn't just demonstrate that
America's foremost far-right historian could withstand the withering assault of
America's foremost left-leaning comedian. We were also reminded how much our
culture depends on non-expert polemicists such as Stewart to undermine dogma
and satirize paranoia--in 30-minute segments. Stewart likes to point out that
he's just a comedian. We need to keep this in mind--and to prepare ourselves
for the hard, generally unfunny slog of straightening the record.

I remember watching the entire interview and found myself "flummoxed" as well on numerous occasions. It is undeniable that Barton is not your average ideologue...rather the kind of ideologue that other ideologues need and revere in order to sanction their less truly-committed, more reactionary fear-based ideology.
Stewart, strangely, didn't pick him apart like he could have, or should have. It seemed like he pulled his punches. And at first, I thought that strange, since he has eviscerated so many others before, so easily.
Unless, perhaps, his intentions were a little different this time. Perhaps, Stewart himself is changing his strategy. Perhaps in the wake of his "Restore Sanity" campaign (if you could call it that), Stewart is perhaps less interested in full-out debate (although he would never do away with this completely, nor should he), and in actually doing what he has asked others to do--- talk to each other for the sake of understanding.
And if that's what he did during this interview... perhaps only because he realized the brick wall that he was up against in the moment--then perhaps the interview did "lead to something." It painted a picture for our society of a civil debate between two sides that, if the pundits are to be believed, are far too apart to ever treat each other as fellow human beings, let alone people with honorable intentions and dreams.
If the people watching that interview tuned in to see an honored pillar of the conservative movement in our country get lambasted, they were instead treated to the now-rarest of sights---civil debate, and genuine seeking to understand (at least from Stewart's end, I believe). And that, in my opinion, was worth something...perhaps more than even the most impressive tongue-lashing from Stewart.

"The show's staff probably thought Barton could be caricatured as a half-crazed ideologue, unconcerned with larger inconvenient truths. "
And they were right. He was.
Insisting that he was still right after being shown he was wrong, especially in his view of early Unitarianism, doesn't make him right. It makes him untrustworthy even among pseudo-historians.

I wonder when someone in the press will ask David Barton about a statement that was made in a Amicus Curie brief sponsored by his orgnaization that was sent to the "Five-Faiths Case" in California. "that the Founders did not intend the Religion Clauses to protect paganism and witchcraft" So to all of you out there who support David Barton, what do you think. Should only Christians/Monothiests have the protection of the 1st Amendment?

Why would the Founding Fathers protect witchcraft in the First Amendment when they had those people jailed? Freedom of conscience was granted to anyone provided it did not subvert public order, which witchcraft and pagan rites does.

First off show me some evidence and documentation? When did the Founders jail pagans? Which Founding Fathers?
Also John Adams also jailed newspaper editors under the Alien and Sedition acts in 1789 I suspose you want to bring this back as well?

I agree with your post. I think JS gave up, it was more like wrestling jello than an actual thoughtful discussion
Barton throws out things as fact, without even the tiniest attempt to make sure they're true. Case in point:
Stewart: So you would allow [Sharia}, like, let’s say Dearborn, Michigan was majority Muslim…
Barton: And it is.
Except it ISN'T majority Muslim. But that would get in the way of his narrative.
He forgot to say #not intended to be a factual statement

Randall Stephens is a reader in history and American studies at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom. He is currently completing a book titled The Devil’s Music: Christianity and Rock since the 1950s.